Every Christian leader is challenged to strike a balance between faith and their business. Since they must juggle the needs of numerous diverse stakeholders, Christian business leaders know they need to do more than make moral choices and abide by the law.
However, not everyone understands that Christian business leadership demands more than just making money to put in the offering plate. Instead, it is about lifting everything up to the Lord and seeing their businesses as operating in service to God and humanity.
More often than not, Christian business leaders experience tensions and struggles, especially when it comes to embodying Christ’s values in the workplace. These struggles include choosing between God and profit, people’s needs or business needs, humility or the ego of success, family or work, and charity or wealth.
While this may be true, Christian business executives also understand that God calls for a balance between options, and that they must seek Him for guidance. Given our experience with working with businesses and executives, Ripple Optimum Impact outlines four reasons why the world needs more Christian business leaders:
1. Christian Business Leaders always seek ways to glorify God. They understand that whatever work is done, it is for men and never for men (see Colossians 3:23). These Christ-centered business leaders operate their enterprises in a way where every customer is treated the way we want to serve God. Furthermore, they do not merely generate revenue, but offers the course of work to God.
2. Christian Business Leaders express empathy and love. Rather than viewing other enterprises as competitors that need to be crushed, a business leader embodying Christ prefers to succeed in their own fileds while also praying for their competitors so God may bless them as well. Remember, Matt 5:44 states “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”.
3. Christian Business Leaders always seek God’s guidance. As Jesus said in Luke 11:9-10, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Hence, Christian business leaders know that no one has the power to accomplish things alone; they understand that it is through Him and His Guidance that success and blessings may be achieved.
4. Christian Business Leaders always aim to serve. Great businesses found their way to success through leaders who fervently show and act on their desire to serve rather than exercising authority over others. With this, Christian business leaders know how to treat and serve their employees, colleagues, competitors, customers, and the community. After all, Matthew 20:28 reminds us to be like the Son of Man who came to serve others and not to be served.
Being a Christian leads us to see our work not as merely a way to earn money, nor as primarily a means of personal advancement, but a truly a calling—to serve God and love our neighbor. When Christian values are embodied in business leadership, people are called to revolutionize the business landscape.
Indeed, the world needs more Christian leaders who can make ethical business decisions, foster interaction with competitors, abide rules and regulations, bring employees to greatness, and serve others as means to glorify and acknowledge God Himself.
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